ENGL347 Women Writers
this affliction ’ ( p8 ): this ‘ affliction ’ being destructive patriarchal institutions , like ‘ trash burning endlessly in the dump ’ ( p6 ), only normalized , and clothed in the trappings of routine domesticity . Yet despite the typical connotations of burning as the most innate , carnal form of destruction , the fact that this ‘ trash ’ […] burn [ s ] endlessly ’ suggests a form of enduring resilience , a refusal to be irrecoverably destroyed . They may leave ‘ scars ’ ( p16 ) for Rich ’ s speaker , much like Arshi ’ s ‘ cold collector of bruise [ s ]’ ( p6 ) in Mirrors , however these physical marks are presented not as reverberations of systemic destruction , but rather markers of having survived and re-built oneself from the cinders . Gilbert and Gubar discuss this , articulating the power of destruction in catalysing women ’ s ‘ artistic authority , [ fuelling ] her own power of self-creation .’ In the light of this , Rich ’ s When We Dead Awaken offers a similar empowerment from reconstruction ; re-creating the self by asserting artistic authority . For example , the repetition of the women collectively ‘ working ’ provides a rhythmic consistency to this destruction , suggesting a deliberate ‘ pick [ ing ] apart ’, in order to recreate ‘ this trailing knitted thing , this cloth of darkness , this woman ’ s garment ’ ( pp22-23 ).
15
These otherwise unidentified women use their creative power to reconstruct their ‘ selves ’, as Alice Walker describes , ‘ an artist who left her mark in the only materials she could afford , and in the only medium her position in society allowed her to use .’ Like Walker ’ s description of the woven quilt in her essay , In Search of Our Mother ’ s Gardens , these women transform this ‘ trailing ... thing ’ to a more purposeful ‘ cloth ’, elevating it to its final completed state as a ‘ woman ’ s garment ’ - making their mark , harnessing the energy of destruction and inverting it as an opportunity to re-create their own self and narratives . Thus , both poems end on a note of defiance , presenting destruction as not just inevitable but an essential aspect of self-creation and growth . The speaker in Arshi ’ s Mirrors describes how she ‘ pour [ s ] myself in and / then out again / all my past lives / revolving ’ ( pp32- 35 ). For Arshi , destruction is a vital mechanism fuelling the ongoing development of the self . Wheras Rich ’ s speaker in When We Dead Awaken adopts a tone of authority as she urges- ‘ Listen to me :’ further emphasised by a pause as she continues , ‘ the faithfulness I can imagine would be a weed flowering in tar , a blue energy piercing the massed atoms of a bedrock disbelief ’ ( pp51-53 ).